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Failure to Call One of the Parties Who Signed a Drug-Analysis Report Did Not Violate the Confrontation Clause/No Evidence the Party Conducted Any Testing or Analysis

The Third Department determined that the Confrontation Clause was not violated because a party [Lafond] who had signed the report identifying the controlled substance defendant was accused of selling did not testify.  The court determined Lafond had nothing to do with the chemical tests and analysis.  The party who actually did the chemical tests and analysis, Brant, testified:

…Brant – the analyst who identified the oxycodone, performed the chemical tests on it, determined the nature of the substance, and authored the report – in fact testified and was subject to crossexamination … .  The report is certified pursuant to CPL 190.30 (2) with the following language: “I, Clifford E. Brant, . . . hereby certify” and then states that it is “my [i.e. Brant’s] report and contains the opinions and interpretations of the examination I performed in the above referenced case” (emphasis added).  Brant also testified that Lafond cosigned the report after an administrative review of it, as required by State Police protocol.  There is no support in the record for the proposition that Lafond examined or analyzed the substance, observed Brant doing so, or was signing the report in that capacity.  Indeed, Brant testified that after he alone performed the forensic chemical testing, he sealed, signed and dated the laboratory bag containing the pill, which remained intact as of the trial, supporting the conclusion that Lafond only read and signed the report after it was completed to ensure that proper procedure was followed …, and she had no role in ascertaining or verifying the identity of the substance in issue.  Thus, the “actual analyst who performed the tests” … and “wr[o]te [the] report[]” … testified.   We find that Lafond, who neither analyzed the substance in issue nor authored the report, was not a “witness” against defendant for purposes of the Confrontation Clause … and, accordingly, no Crawford violation occurred as a result of the People admitting Brant’s report into evidence without calling Lafond to testify. People v Wolz, 104909, 104910, 3rd Dept 12-19-13

 

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